Snow Chronicles
by ariadne-chan
Summary: Once upon a time, a girl met a boy, and they grew up fast. A series of one-shots inspired by the coldest of the seasons. Night 6: He's not quite human, but sometimes he's close enough. ZeroxYuuki
1. Night One

Title: Fairytale  
Prompt: Leaving  
Pairing: Zero x Yuuki, with hints of Kaname anguish, ha.  
Rating: T

Once he thought that it would be beautiful to end his mourning—the slow, all-too delicate dance. Once he thought that it would be right—journey's end. That in her he would find redemption or perhaps that he already had and the aftermath would be beautiful. She laughed and he smiled and the night was red like blood; like murder. She called him her angel and he held her tight before she could finish speaking.

He thinks sometimes, that this is like murder, and the series of implications and complications don't scare him as much as they should.

* * *

A long time ago, a girl met a boy and they grew up fast. A long time ago, she thought that falling in love was forever and that surrendering would shatter. He listens when she tells him this and he says, without a single word spoken, that he understands. He doesn't tell her about the parts he leaves out. She nods, instead, and she listens to the rain and heartbeats. They resume their night calls; their guardian duties.

Her life is sepia and these moments are gold. But when her eyes are closed, she can't tell the difference.

* * *

Sometimes when she says his name, he forgets that she had another, that it was he who allowed her to lean and be protected by another, but only sometimes. There are times when she turns away-dares him to call her back. Dares him to try and knows that if he does, she will not come. It doesn't matter, because he doesn't try. As if he knows, as if he fears._ A Kuran is fearful of nothing._ Yuuki is his—her fate had been sealed the moment she was born, and he should know better than to doubt. There is hardly a reason why he should. But he sees her staring at _him, _caring for _him_, worrying about _him_, and his convictions crumble to the ground, like fallen snow.

* * *

The sky spreads like wings behind him. She was wrong, he thinks. He is not an angel.

When he patrols the grounds at night, when he moves in the darkness, he understands that he is alone. He slides through the shadows as though they are water, leaving no lines and no past. He is alone, without a life, without a family, without Ichiru, and without _her _he would not know what else he would do. He is alone and he realizes why he never needed to plan for an escape—to find the fastest way out. He glides among the shadows because he weaves them as if borne from their mists. He belongs in the darkness.

She doesn't believe him when he tells her, or maybe she never tries.

* * *

She would run, she thinks, if she had somewhere to go, or maybe she wouldn't. She watches him breathe, the rise and fall of his chest, and matches the rhythm with her own. When she feels her heart to slow, she uses a fingernail to write in the frost, watches as letters take shape.

_Zero. Yuuki. Love._

She stares at the words, unfamiliar as runes, and strains to hear the echoes, ephemeral and vanishing as voices from a stream. She draws a heart around the three and stares at the graffiti, remembering fairytales and when the next day could just as easily have been forever, because all that mattered was his hand on hers and the silver lines of rain outside.

She presses her hand to the window and holds it there, pulls it away only when she knows her words will be gone. She stares ahead and it is Kaname-senpai she sees. In the dark, his eyes are the color of cold ashes. She nods and faces the door, taking one last glimpse at Zero's sleeping form, knowing it is time to leave. Someday, she thinks, this will be over. The flames have gone out, faded with age and with storm, but an ember burns, _burns. _When this is over, she thinks, as she joins his brother under the shadows of the trees, they will find each other, count stars in a brilliant dark sky and he will tell her what they used to mean, Cassiopeia and Orion and Pleiades.

When this is over, she thinks, she will love him again, or she will die trying. She knows that she will make it that long. She just wonders if he will, too.

Her eyes sweep the sprawling building that had been her home for the past eight eyes and sheds a tear. Too much had happened, too much has changed, and it is time to leave.

**order of povs: zero, yuuki, kaname, zero, then back to yuuki. **hope this piece made sense. :3


	2. Night Two

Title: Stories  
Prompt: Warmth/ Cold  
Pairing: Zero x Yuuki (and the usual one-sided Kaname appearance. ugh, this is _so_ getting old).  
Rating: T

In blackest winter she stands by the window and traces patterns in the frost, lines indelicate and thick with heat. Warmth radiates from her fingers, melting the ice and leaving clumsy silhouettes. Condensation on her fingernails catches the candlelight and glistens like liquid diamonds—the water leaves trails like tears on her skin when she presses her hands to her face.

She has never liked winter. It is a time for running and for freezing, when survival is at its most tenuous. There are no places to hide in winter and once can only hope that it will snow enough to cover footprints left in the snow. Here, though, it is warm. Kaname-senpai doesn't like winter, either, but his reasons are so different, innumerable and complicated and none of them his own. She wonders if he would ever tell her happy stories about their parents, about pictures and laughter, about hot cocoa and fireplaces, because all of these seemed like legends, vaporous as ghosts. And as frightening. He had told her before that they were once real, and she had been compelled to find them herself. It was odd, though, for it was not her brother who had kept her sane during those sleepless nights. Those nights when the silence had been painfully marred by her screams, everything around her tainted with shining crimson—with blood. Strange, that it had to be a boy, the one who had painted his lips red and had left crescents of blood on her shoulders. And stranger, still, how she never complained—not even once.

Her brother joins her by the window, and tells her a story. She doesn't listen to the words, but to his voice. She pretends that this will save her, that the rise and fall of his words have no meaning outside themselves. She had loved this man since she had first laid her eyes on him, but now, she's not so sure anymore. She pretends that she is not dying, that this does not leave her empty. This is all she can give, and all that is hers to take. She pretends that it is enough.

She closes her eyes and thinks of the future. Her brother's hands find hers and they were gentle as waves, snow falling like cold stars far away, far away. The image stutters and freezes before she can see herself, before she can see what place she holds, what time has promised.

_A pureblood. _Aidou-senpai's harsh words stings her ears, _again, _and she shakes her head to forget.

When she opens her eyes, his are closed, as if it is real life that cannot be shared. This does not surprise her and she walks silently away, busies herself with the kettle and water and stove. He does not have cocoa, as far as she can tell, and she settles for tea instead. She wants chocolate and cream. But liquid bitterness will have to do.

* * *

Wind covers the city in visible waves, weaving throughout the high buildings and along the cold streets. The roads are unyielding beneath a slick layer of ice—she knows this because she had slipped earlier; her bike tires sliding like silk across glass, and the sensation had been so sudden, so much like freedom, that she'd forgotten that she would land. The sharpness had bitten into her palms, torn at her skin and left jagged, humbling lines. She had never felt more human._ Human—_

But this, too, shall pass. It will fade. One day, she would not be able to hide any longer. One day, Zero would find her. It doesn't bother her that it would mean her—no, _their _end. She remembers words unspoken and finds that they have come too late. _How did things come to this,_ she wonders. When did Zero become unreachable—frozen oceans and cold starscapes?

The kettle settles and she pulls it from the heat, measures the water between two cups and carries them out to him, to where Kaname waits. Steam wafts, rich and delicate, and she wraps her fingers around the mug as if she can absorb the heat, as if to take it into her body. It doesn't work. He watches her over his own mug and she wonders if he knows. The air is tranquil and the evenness of their breathing makes her drowsy.

He smiles and the tea cools, forgotten.

She wonders if that is the only reason why she had been born. Solely for the purpose of being _his—_the role her mother had wholeheartedly played for _her _brother. _But it is wrong,_ Yuuki decides, if she is to forget her vampire nature. She had lived with humans for too long, after all. _Zero_, she thinks, instead, as she closes her eyes and let Kaname's lips warm hers—_Zero will find me soon._

Later, the wind cries outside and razor-edged pleas dance in the air. He breathes against her hair and she does not listen.

* * *

**i wonder how i can still find the time to write amidst the hustle and bustle of everyday life. my imagination carries me away at peculiar times, and words randomly appear on my brain that i am simply left with no choice but to reach out for a piece of paper and a pen and write them down else they drive me to the brink of insanity. **ah, the beauty of printed words on blank paper.


	3. Night Three

Title: Reaching Out  
Prompt: Days  
Character/s: Zero (Yuuki undertone, if there is such a thing).  
Rating: K

There are good days, sometimes.

But there are also days like this, when Zero feels as if he ought to tie himself to the sky to stop gravity from breaking him against the ground, when reaching out and touching when he shouldn't seems like the only possible thing to do, when his restraint falters and his eyes go dark.

On those days, the only chains strong enough to hold him up are words from Yuuki's mouth, words telling him to fight, or to stop, or to do anything at all other than letting go. Words, to direct him away and ever upwards.

His greatest fear and greatest hope is that someday, he will catch Yuuki completely speechless, and they'll both fall through the wind together.

**to the people who had so graciously left me kind reviews; thank you. i cannot stress that enough.**


	4. Night Four

Title: Reminisce  
Prompt: Rain  
Character/s: Zero (...and Yuuki. so why am i not surprised? x.x)  
Rating: K

Zero stands in the rain because it gives him the feeling of being washed away, back, back to the days where the Kiryuu's were a people and not a memory, where ignorance reigned blissfully.

He sees the reflections in the rain. Sometimes, they flash gold and bright, sometimes, they smile with mismatched eyes.

Most of all, he thinks the rain is like tears; tears which begged him to stop, to stay, to let him be loved again. He wishes that wherever Yuuki is now, she is safe, and perhaps, even happy. He glances at the _Bloody Rose _on his right hand_; _at the heap of ash on his feet, and remembers what he had chosen to stay alive for. The rain splashes at his face and he closes his eyes. He would kill the bastard pureblood if he ever made Yuuki cry.

Zero stands in the rain, and embraces it with the fevered hope of a missed chance.

The rain is very beautiful, he decides. 

**another chapter. i hope you guys liked it. **_:3_**  
**


	5. Night Five

Title: Where Roads End  
Prompt: Road/ Running  
Character/s: ZeroxYuuki  
Rating: K

_i_

Dawn finds them on the road, far away from the light and flames of the city. Trees blur past the windows, shades of brown and gray and white. This is winter. He is driving too fast, but she will not tell him to slow down.

She will not.

His hands are tight on the steering wheel, white against black. She can see his veins, pale blue lines underneath such a thin layer. The blood flows like water, smashing against the barrier.

The pavement is wet, rich-dark. Glossy against the texture of nature and too human, a mark of technology, of ownership. Hard to imagine the smooth surface is nothing more than a scar. The heater is on and the warm air is clammy, but she will not ask him to turn it off.

She will not.

And so they drive, and they drive, and the horizon changes from pink to ruby-gold to black, like a bruise in reverse.

_ii_

They have not lost everything. If they had, they would not be moving, would not be running. But what they have left is fragile, could so easily fall into air, and so it remains untouched. There will be time for discussion when they stop.

And if they do not make it that far, it will not matter. He hopes for her sake that they do, because he wants her to have a Real Life. He wants her on a beach, sand beneath her feet and wind in her hair and the air would smell of oranges and sea.

But wants are not promises, not vows. And they will need concrete, the false strength of words to keep them here.

So he says that they will make it, even as he thinks that he's tired, and so is she, and maybe she should leave him here and disappear from the apocalypse that has become their lives.

It has been said that those who become legends in their own time rarely have much time left.

He should have remembered that.

_iii_

Afternoon is silver and she wonders what it would feel like to live inside lightning. Pure energy, she thinks. And pure adrenaline. It is what has kept them going this far. What has kept them alive in the days before they left, before they understood that it was Too Late.

She is running again, and she wonders where it will stop. The road will turn to water when they reach the end, and she hopes he knows where he is going. She hopes he has a plan, maybe a white-painted house with trees reaching to the stars and nights like oil.

She wonders what it is like to watch the end of the world. To reach the end of the road.

They are not far, she knows. They will go much further.

She wishes she could sleep, but she will not abandon him, and so she keeps a nervous vigil and imagines candles and rain and the sound of alarms that signal nothing more than the beginning of another day.

_iv_

It is too early. They should have had more time. Maybe they would have, if he had noticed. If she had noticed. If they had paid more attention, been more alert. It no longer matters. It is over.

It is over, and something new has begun. He wishes that it had taken him alone, but he is glad that she is with him. It's selfish, but he is tired of being righteous and fighting to survive at the same time. He will be glad when they stop driving, when they stop.

When they begin again.

She does not speak and he dares not ask her for her thoughts, because regrets are infinite and he does not need affirmation. She looks out the window and he can see a faint reflection of her image on the glass, so light against the landscape, against the wilderness.

If this is not the end, why can't he see past midnight?

_v_

Night is rich with color. She does not want to name them all and so she looks for stars, but the clouds have covered them, have separated the world from cool heavens. She wonders if it is a sign and remembers belatedly that she doesn't believe in those.

The engine hums, mechanical life. No one has stopped them, no one has asked. Maybe no one is looking for them, but she will not risk that. They will not go back. Ruins are cold and empty.

_Kaname-senpai._ A tear.

Zero's gaze is apology and Yuuki is glad for the darkness out her window; it will not contradict her stories. It will not protest her lies.

**:3 i've been yearning to write something like this for quite some time now. **i have several scenes in my head regarding the moment yuuki and zero meet again, but somehow i came up with this. i think i'd be posting other drafts and hope it would not bring confusion. hehe. :3


	6. Night Six

Title: Real  
Prompt: Human/Humanity  
Character/s: Zero  
Rating: K

i have developed an odd liking to bizarre and/or random prompts. mwa. this is for you, nijinoneko, the only one who's crazy enough to stalk this weird story. hehehe.

:3

Evening's heavy with promises—sometimes he can almost see them. Or maybe that's just the smoke; the bar's heavy with it, but it blurs the edges and so he doesn't mind the haze. He's tired of perfection and clean lines, blue and white, both deceptively sharp. This is distorted and dulled, shades of red, black, gold, and the colors blend so easily into one another. He doesn't have to stay within the lines here—no one else is. He's one of the many, part of the crowd, or so he thinks it appears—he himself can still see the divisions.

That, of course, is the problem. He doesn't care so much about how they see him, how they react, as long as he stays mostly out of sight. That isn't a problem, really—he just pretends otherwise because it gives them simple conclusions and ideas, and he doesn't have to worry about what they're thinking. Maybe he's happier when he's distant and walking away. Maybe he's tired of trying to fit in, trying to meld and still be unique, an individual—that's the sort of thing Yuuki says, the sort of phrase she uses. Be an individual, make his place, find a home, make friends. Fit in. The alternative's destroyed, all other options gone to ashes. He doesn't have a choice, and so here he is. One of the crowd, Saturday night, nameless unfamiliar bar. But it's not like he's going to see anyone that he knows. He doesn't want to talk about the past and the future—he wants to be here, _now._

And most of the time, he is. Except when he closes his eyes and feels himself begin to come apart, feels everything begin to unravel, and then he runs, but it's never far enough. He's sick of knowing that, having that analysis exist next to the nightmares that are sometimes real life. That knowledge just makes things harder, more complex, more ironic. Times like that, he wishes he was back within gray-black confines, where things were absolute and outlined and he didn't have to worry about the walls and rules he can't always see.

But he's here now because sometimes perfection is too much, and sometimes the grime and dirt and fatigue of what they call daily living is overwhelming. Sometimes he just wants to be flesh on flesh, quickness and feeling—but not emotions. Never emotions. Because emotions are what brought him here, aren't they?

Here. He's supposed to be above this, above feeling, but he thinks maybe something went wrong, because the thing with Yuuki, that was never supposed to happen, either. It's smooth, clean, hints of angst and drama, but not at all close to reality, to what happened. He likes that. _Will I ever see her again?_

When he looks up, scans the room as a matter of habit, the smile's still on his face. The woman a few seats away thinks it's for her and he can sense the blood pounding in her veins, but maybe he doesn't mind. It's what he was planning on, anyway, what he expected. It's what he does now. It's what he does, but he used to be so much more. He had promise, potential. And then... and then. He doesn't know what comes next.

So he comes in here, saunters in and nearly chokes on the smoke, slides onto a stool, pretends he's normal. Pretends he's real, because they define real as what they believe in, what they can see and test, and he's not like that. They can test him as often as they want and he'll always keep pieces hidden, shadowed, dark, because he doesn't want to give all of himself away. He's done that before, didn't like how it turned out.

And so he gets what he came for, because he's alone and this is how it works, and it's what he does. He's not quite human, but sometimes he's close enough.

:3


End file.
